And Life No Longer What It Was
by Hekate1308
Summary: You never thought anything like this would happen to you, and sometimes, you still wonder why it did. Sherlock/John, Johnlock, Post-Reunion.


**Author's note: Another way I could see Johnlock happen because I felt like it.**

**I don't own anything. **

You never thought anything like this would happen to you, and sometimes, you still wonder why it did. You certainly never wanted it, not before –

Before Moriarty. Before everything. Before the three years of dismantling his web, wishing desperately to get home (even if "home" was just a name people gave to the place they lived in, you reminded yourself time and time again).

Once you had returned, and he had punched you and shouted at you and still decided to move back to Baker Street, after all the anger had passed, much to the anger of his girlfriend, who had ended things soon after this, you knew – or rather suspected you knew – that, after these three years of grieving and of an utterly unremarkable life, he would imagine that he was developing a romantic attachment towards you.

You didn't predict it would last, though. You thought he would eventually find himself a girlfriend, get married, have children, forget these feelings he had thought he had towards you.

You were wrong.

After he had moved back into 221B, where he belonged (you were relieved and, of course, this had nothing to do with anything remotely romantic on your side – it's not your area, after all) he never had another girlfriend again; at least he never spent another night away, instead staying home, making tea, looking at you, making sure you were comfortable.

Still, you'd thought this would pass.

But it didn't. All of a sudden, he looked at you in a way – in a certain way – that had Lestrade smirking and asking, "Finally?" You ignored him, naturally, but the implication remained ingrained in your mind palace, no matter how many times you tried to delete it.

And after a few weeks of looking at you in this way – or rather, seven weeks, four days, ten hours and forty-five minutes – he kissed you after a case where you had both once again almost died.

You were surprised that it wasn't as repulsive as you had always imagined someone sharing his or her DNA with you. You had never worried about your sexual preference before, and you didn't start then. You'd never seen the point of getting this close to another human being. And yet you didn't push John away. In fact, you rather enjoyed it.

Just as you enjoyed what came after. John hadn't really asked for permission – he'd simply looked into your eyes and apparently seen what he wanted to see, but anyway, he had dragged you into his bedroom, and you didn't protest.

Because somehow, you had realized that this was the way that you could keep John. If you only satisfied him in this respect too, like in any other, the doctor would never move out. You could keep your blogger forever. And it wasn't like you didn't enjoy it, quite on the contrary. You never saw the point of physical relationships, and you still don't, but you have to admit it is... pleasant. For lack of another word. So you allowed it to happen and didn't say anything when John smiled at you afterwards in a way that you knew meant he wanted to tell you something personal, but didn't dare, and you waited until he fell asleep to return to the kitchen and finish your experiment, even though there was no reason to.

You were aware, when you sat down on the kitchen table and studied the sample through the microscope, that John fancied himself in love with you. It would keep him here for a little while longer. It wouldn't last – it couldn't last, you weren't cut out for relationships, and you certainly didn't return his feelings, and anyway, John was straight – but it meant he would probably live at Baker Street for one, two years more. Two years you wouldn't have to spend without your blogger.

Because, eventually, he would find a wife. He would find someone, a very boring someone, he'd want to spend the rest of his life with, and you would become just a side figure in his life, now and then dropping by to visit him and his family.

There was no unpleasant feeling in your chest when you thought about this future, definitely not. Because you knew it was inevitable – you had expected that he would have settled down by the time you returned, in fact. But at least you'd found a way to make him stay for the time being.

Thankfully, John didn't try to be romantic the next morning. He simply beamed at you and made tea. Neither did he try to hold your hand on the street or make you partake in any other form of public display of affection, and you were perfectly alright with that, really, you were. Because why shouldn't you be? John would move out one day, you would be alone again, it was foolish to pretend otherwise, and making people think you were a couple would only provoke sympathy you didn't want, would only make things awkward.

Mycroft noticed, but you hadn't imagined anything different. He knew as soon as he saw you on the surveillance cameras he still insists he never put up in the vicinity of your flat, but he didn't comment on it. You didn't ask for his opinion. You never have. You can still remember him telling you "Caring is not an advantage", though he clearly does care and probably would gladly tell you what he thinks of all of this.

After that first night, it happened regularly, John kissing you and taking your hand and leading you to his room. It happened rather often after a case, which you decided meant that most of his so-called feelings for you were based on adrenaline, which was the most logical as well as the best explication, for all concerned. Because you didn't want him to be truly in love with you. Love was only a chemical defect found on the losing side anyway. And it would only cause your best friend pain, and you didn't want that.

It stayed like that, for a while at least, you spending a part of the night in his room a few nights a month at first, then a week, leaving when he had fallen asleep. It was fine, it was all fine.

And then he had his first nightmare since you had returned, while you were in the living room, reading a file on an old case Lestrade gave you. In fact, you were surprised it took him so long. It had been almost five months since you came back, and his nightmares wouldn't just stop because you and he were living together again. That just wasn't how the subconscious worked.

Before, you used to let him wake himself up when he started shouting, never mentioning the nightmares. But this time –

You found yourself standing in front of his door and opening it, finding him tossing and turning in his bed. And he was shouting your name. You managed to wake him up just long enough to make sure the nightmare wouldn't return, then let him drift off again and ignored the ridiculous urge to stay. He wouldn't have expected it from you anyway.

He didn't remember the nightmare or you coming into his room the next day, thankfully. You didn't want him to start to think you were changing because of your physical relationship.

By this time, he and you ended up in his bed on average four nights a week, and you were slightly confused because, if anything, you'd thought John would eventually grow tired of pretending that he was indeed gay and therefore the number of nights should decrease instead of increase. In the end, you decided to let it happen – it was rather enjoyable, you had to admit that.

It was always his room, and you were perfectly fine with that. Your room was the place you retreated to when you had to look something up in your mind palace and John was too stubborn to let you have the living room, or where you occasionally rested. Nothing more.

And then Mary Morstan happened. Her case was fascinating, but you couldn't help but be a little distracted by the way she looked at John and realize that she was all your blogger should be looking for, he would probably have asked her out already if he didn't feel a misguided loyalty towards you, judging by the way he looked at her.

You were annoyed. Here you were, hoping to hold him a little while longer, and then she had to come along. He deserved the life he wanted, though, not the one you wanted him to lead, so you decided to help him on his way. As it turned out, she was holding something back and you needed the piece of information to finish the case, so you asked John to have dinner with her.

He smiled and left, and you turned to an experiment you had meant to finish for a few days now and fought the temptation to throw a petri dish at the wall. Not because you were upset, of course not. You were just frustrated he was going to leave after all you had done to make him stay; it would pass. Everyone left, you'd learned that early in life.

When he came back after a few hours, a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eyes, proud of himself, telling you exactly what you needed to hear to solved the case, you texted Lestrade, and then, suddenly, it was you who was kissing John and dragging him to your bedroom, of all places.

John didn't protest, indeed he kissed back enthusiastically, and you didn't think anymore (it's the one thing that still confuses you, this ability to make you stop thinking) until he fell asleep in your bed. Naturally he didn't leave like you did, and you looked at him for a few minutes, wondering why you had done that, unless –

No. It was more than enough for one of you to believe himself in love. You wouldn't make the same mistake.

Somehow you fell asleep thinking about it, and by the way John looked at you in the morning (not to mention from the way he reacted to finding you still in bed, in a time-consuming but definitely pleasant fashion) you realized he preferred it when you were there.

And he didn't see Mary Morstan again.

From this day on, you slept together in both bedrooms, whichever John seemed to fancy at the moment, still about four times a week. Then, after about two months of this, a new pattern emerged.

He came into your room while you were searching something on your laptop, and you raised an eyebrow. You had had intercourse the day before; this upsurge in his libido was disconcerting.

But then he simply said "I had a nightmare", smiled a weak smile and laid down next to you. He was asleep within minutes, and you stared at him, trying to understand why having a nightmare suddenly meant he had to sleep next to you.

This became another constant in your life, after this. He would sleep in your room more and more often, even on the nights you didn't have sex, and you noticed a tendency to stay beside him. There were times now you had to almost force yourself to leave his side. It was alarming.

Around this time you re-categorized your mind palace and were in the process of re-filing your retirement plan when you noticed something that made you frown.

You didn't plan on retiring soon, of course not, you still don't, not for years, but you'd always had the plan if moving to Sussex in your old age, in a cottage, keeping bees and writing textbooks about the Science of Deduction. You always knew what the cottage would look like; you hadn't changed the outlay or furniture in ages.

And now the plan suddenly included a double bed and a cupboard full of ugly jumpers and more room for the books John loves to read and the few things he took with him when he moved into 221B.

It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. John would be long gone by the time you retired; and even if you'd thought he'd stay with you –

A double bed? Really? You both had your own bedrooms, despite everything, and you certainly intended to keep it that way.

You deleted the new plan, although you later found that it hadn't been deleted at all. By the time you realized, John had been stabbed in the stomach tough, and suddenly none of your strange feelings, if they even were feelings, you didn't fancy yourself in love, you reminded yourself again, or John's habit of falling asleep next to you or the nights you spent together meant anything because you might just lose your doctor after all, and you couldn't think, could barely breathe. Lestrade was sitting next to you in the waiting room – it had been one of his cases – and tried to be there for you, but you'd never needed someone to be there for you before.

Still, Lestrade seemed to be convinced that you must be devastated, and you were, in a way, he was your best friend after all, even if your DI was apparently convinced that your relationship – he had known, of course he had, he wasn't they Yard's best for nothing after all – would make you vulnerable. And, in fact, you almost felt like you had to cry, but you didn't. You never had before. There was no point.

Once John woke up you told him never to do something like that again, however, and he chuckled and told you he would try. When he was finally released, you helped him in your bed – he was half-asleep from the pain meds anyway, and you didn't want him to climb another set of stairs.

Today, you realized that he hasn't slept in his room since – even though it's been almost three months since he came home from the hospital – and that, somehow, all of his belongings have found a way in your room, and you have slept more in these three months than in all the years that came before because you didn't want to leave him.

Coincidentally, today was also the day Mrs. Hudson found out that what she had suspected all along was true. She came up with a tea tray, determined to look if John was still doing alright, despite him being completely fine, and you blogger wanted to show her the book he was reading at the moment. When you saw him searching for it in the living room, you automatically said, "It's in our room" and John smiled at you in that special way and disappeared, Mrs. Hudson beaming and patting your hand and telling you that she'd always known.

Now, you are sitting on the sofa and John is making dinner because he's decided he needs to get you to eat, and just like that, you suddenly realize that he will stay and you will need that double bed in your cottage in Sussex after all.

When he gives you the plate, smiling and this certain expression in his eyes, you admit to yourself that his feelings were genuine all along, and that you might reciprocate them, or at least like him well enough to make him stay until you are both old and grey. You smile back at him, suspecting that your eyes might just soften a bit as you do so, and his hand stays a bit longer on yours than necessary, even after you have taken the plate.

He then gives you a kiss and goes to get his plate, and you realize that it is fine, that it's all been fine all along, that he will stay.

And you start eating, listen to the noises he makes in the kitchen and decide that you are a lucky man after all.

**Author's note: Style over substance. I regret nothing.**

**I hope you liked it, please review.**


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